By the time Petway learned about the music school after leafing through a school publication, he said it was too late to change his major.

"If I had known, I could have applied and tried to get into music school. I would've done that with no hesitation," Petway said. "But I didn't even know.

"Everybody knew my interest was in music. But I wasn't going to bring it up at that point. It was crazy."

Petway said he left Michigan eight credits short of a degree in general studies, but that wasn't his first choice of an academic pursuit, either. When he arrived in Ann Arbor in 2003, he wanted to be an athletic trainer.

Petway said Angie Beck, then the academic counselor assigned to work with men's basketball by Michigan's Academic Success Program - the athletic department's tutoring and advising arm - immediately explained he'd have to pick a different major.

The athletic training program requires students to spend an entire semester working with one of Michigan's 25 varsity teams, which wouldn't be possible for a basketball player.

Petway said Beck told him to study a different kinesiology major and told him what classes to take his freshman and sophomore years.

Reached by phone last fall, Beck declined to speak to The News.

Looking back, Petway said he wasn't prepared to juggle basketball, schoolwork and a social life.

In the second semester of his sophomore year, he stopped going to class, and he became ineligible to play basketball for the fall semester in 2005.

"I was just going to go to practice and do nothing," Petway said. "I didn't do anything my whole second semester. ... I didn't even try to go to class. I wasn't even going outside my room, that's how bad it was."

Petway wasn't surprised when he learned he was ineligible.

"It's like I was trying to sabotage myself," Petway said. "It's one of those chapters in life. I would change it, of course, and do my work. But, still, I think it was good for me."

Petway said it's sometimes unreasonable to expect an athlete to make a full commitment to their sport and still meet the requirements of being a Michigan student.

"When you go on the road, you're pretty much not going to do ... work," Petway said. "It's going to be tough. You're going to be in a hotel or going somewhere. You've either got to get it done before you leave or get an extension when you get back.

"In college, there's so much pressure put on you to win. It's just like the pros. The coaches want to keep their jobs and make more money on us, you know? They want to win so they can get to the next level."

If he could change his experience at Michigan, Petway said he would have been more dedicated to academics, begun picking his own classes sooner and pushed to explore the music major.

What would he do now, if he wasn't playing basketball?

"I'd try and be like Antonio Gates and go try and play football," he said.